<p>Such technology has so far been limited to its use in assessment of objective-type answers only.The automated system, developed by a team of some 20 researchers of the IIIT, uses the Natural Language Processing (NLP) method to understand if a sentence makes sense.<br />With the help of the system developed by the IIIT researchers, after seven long years, computers can comprehend the texts and compare their essence with certain model answers already fed in it. It will then award marks or grades on the basis of the closeness of the answer with the model answers.<br /><br />The remarkable feature in the system is that it will flash a question mark seeking human intervention if it fails to comprehend any sentence.<br /><br />Although it cannot give 100 per cent accuracy in evaluation, it is capable of assessing descriptive answers with 95-99 per cent accuracy, an official of the HRD Ministry said, describing the development as a “significant step forward” towards the government’s plan to launch a virtual university in the country in next two years.<br /><br />“For starting a virtual university, we need to develop a system under which we can hold examinations online, evaluate automatically and publish results quickly,” the official said.<br />The technology has been commercialised recently by Setu Software, which is an incubating company of IIIT Hyderabad. The company has approached several universities and school boards offering them to use the system.<br /><br />The unique automated evaluator recognises texts in English. Efforts are on to make it available for use in other languages also, the ministry official said.<br /></p>
<p>Such technology has so far been limited to its use in assessment of objective-type answers only.The automated system, developed by a team of some 20 researchers of the IIIT, uses the Natural Language Processing (NLP) method to understand if a sentence makes sense.<br />With the help of the system developed by the IIIT researchers, after seven long years, computers can comprehend the texts and compare their essence with certain model answers already fed in it. It will then award marks or grades on the basis of the closeness of the answer with the model answers.<br /><br />The remarkable feature in the system is that it will flash a question mark seeking human intervention if it fails to comprehend any sentence.<br /><br />Although it cannot give 100 per cent accuracy in evaluation, it is capable of assessing descriptive answers with 95-99 per cent accuracy, an official of the HRD Ministry said, describing the development as a “significant step forward” towards the government’s plan to launch a virtual university in the country in next two years.<br /><br />“For starting a virtual university, we need to develop a system under which we can hold examinations online, evaluate automatically and publish results quickly,” the official said.<br />The technology has been commercialised recently by Setu Software, which is an incubating company of IIIT Hyderabad. The company has approached several universities and school boards offering them to use the system.<br /><br />The unique automated evaluator recognises texts in English. Efforts are on to make it available for use in other languages also, the ministry official said.<br /></p>
